Eric Schmidt Vows Motorola Deal Won’t “Screw Up” Android
In an interview with Bloomberg, Eric Schmidt did his best to lay to rest concerns that the purchase of Motorola by Google may result in more harm than good when it comes to Android. Long known for their reluctancy to directly enter into the hardware business, many saw the purchase of Motorola in sharp contrast to the central ideals of Android. Google, after all, now has the opportunity to have greater control over the hardware Motorola produces, a benefit some have speculated could lead to favoritism and direct competition with other Android manufacturers. Schmidt said, however,
“The Android ecosystem is the No. 1 priority, and that we won’t do anything with Motorola, or anybody else by the way, that would screw up the dynamics of that industry. We need strong, hard competition among all the Android players. We won’t play favorites in the way people are concerned about.”
As has been known from the beginning, the Motorola deal was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to ongoing patent lawsuits assaulting Android from all angles. The buyout of Motorola transferred ownership of tens of thousands of patents to Google, positioning them to better defend the Android ecosystem. While Google may have overpaid, they still possess a unique advantage with Motorola to help Android grow over the coming years (or so Eric Schmidt hopes).
[via Gizmodo]